On the outskirts of Kingston, on the north side of Route 28 just west of the Thruway and Route 209, stand two connected geodesic domes whose ultimate intended use has left many passing motorists puzzled for a long time now. On the evening of Wednesday, November 27, the answer to that question was finally revealed to the public, as the Domes Dispensary held its gala opening party.
The dome structures were “originally envisioned to be an organic food store and nursery,” according to Valerie Stote, who was on hand for the celebration. She is the widow of Joe Stote, a well-known artist and musician who built the domes. “We used to own the West Strand Grill. My husband was a big supporter of the O+ Festival. Chris Gonyea replicated one of his artworks for O+,” Valerie recounted. Joe’s band Peacebomb was a fixture on the local music scene for many years, playing at Woodstock ’94; more recently, he had been a member, along with the Eppard brothers, of the prog/rock ensemble called 3.
The domes project was put on hold when Joe Stote’s “builder father passed — the wind went out of his sails,” Valerie related. “Then, in March 2024, my husband died of cancer. He went to the doctor for a bad back and was dead two weeks later. He had been trying to sell this for some time.”
Last September, the Stotes found their buyer in another denizen of the arts world: Jennie Dundas, who left a long and successful acting career to found an artisanal ice cream empire. Her breakout screen role was portraying the ten-year-old Gloria Vanderbilt in the 1982 TV miniseries Little Gloria…Happy at Last, alongside a star-studded cast of adult actors including Angela Lansbury and Bette Davis. She went on to play daughters to Diane Keaton’s character twice: in Mrs. Soffel in 1984 and The First Wives Club in 1996. She won an Obie for her 1997 performance in Peter Hedges’ Good as New, and in 2004, she portrayed Laura in The Glass Menagerie at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Then, in 2007, Dundas and her friend Alexis Miesen co-founded Blue Marble Ice Cream, New York City’s only mission-driven, certified organic and B-Corp Certified ice cream company. Their sustainably sourced gourmet product began winning awards, and their enterprise quickly expanded beyond their little shop in Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill neighborhood. They became a wholesale supplier. In 2010 they formed a not-for-profit and began microfinancing women entrepreneurs to open ice cream businesses in Rwanda and Haiti. After COVID struck New York, they became sponsors of a food pantry and farmers’ market run by Harlem-based Brotherhood Sister Sol, a community organization serving Black and Latinx youth.
Now, Jennie Dundas and her electrician husband David Tivnan have taken on a new project: renovating Joe Stote’s abandoned domes and making them the headquarters for a cannabis company that supports local agriculture and artisans while building community. The lofty, skylit structures at 268 Forest Hill Drive look cheerful and welcoming after their facelift, which involved extensive installation of paneling made from reclaimed wood.
The crowd at the opening mingled, chatted happily, danced to “silent disco” wearing headphones and snacked on an upscale buffet catered by Hudson-based Poppy Plate. Most of the cannabis products are kept locked up in a vault in the second dome, and there were no sales in progress at the special event. But sample packages were displayed on shelves around the room, touting the new dispensary’s broad selection of New York State-made cannabis products. There were flower products and prerolls, vapes and cartridges, gummies, chocolates and other edibles, and infused products including topicals and tinctures. Even the venerable Harney Teas have gotten in on the recreational cannabis action, now that it’s legal.
One of the local brands on view was flower producer Hurley Grown, represented at the opening by Mira Miller. Valerie Stote was trying to talk her into naming a new hybrid strain in honor of Peacebomb, whose logo was a blown-up microscope photo of a cannabis bud. Valerie had a particular nostalgic reason for her request: Hurley Grown’s spread was once her family farm, before Miller took it over in 2016. “Henry Paul was my father. He was one of the three big corn-growers in Hurley, along with the Davenports and the Gills,” she explained. “Having Hurley Grown sold at the Domes brings it full circle. My husband farmed that land. He grew pumpkins out there.”
As a showcase for locally grown cannabis products, the Domes couldn’t be more favorably situated, in Valerie’s view. “We’re in a unique position on Route 28. There was a study that said 26,000 cars per day pass by here. It’s the gateway to the Catskills. Anyone coming to Woodstock for the weekend can easily stop here.”
The Domes Dispensary is open for business Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. and on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information about the product lines, or to preorder, visit www.domesdispensary.com.
Join the family! 
